For the first time, the Historical Museum Frankfurt is collaborating with Goethe University researchers in its Stadtlabor. The result is a participatory and informative exhibition titled “Everyday housing issues. On privatization, refurbishment and protest.”
In 2025, numerous museums and other municipal institutions will celebrate the 100th anniversary of “The New Frankfurt” – an urban planning initiative through which the city sought to combat the housing crisis between 1925 and 1930 with social housing projects, setting architectural standards across Germany. The exhibition “Everyday housing issues. On privatization, refurbishment and protest” was jointly developed by the Historical Museum and human geographers from Goethe University Frankfurt. The focus of the museum’s Citylab lies on the history of three originally nonprofit housing settlements in Frankfurt: 1980s Knorrstraße in the Gallus quarter, the Carl-von-Weinberg settlement in the city’s Westend from the 1930s, and the postwar-modern Henri-Dunant settlement in Sossenheim. The exhibition and accompanying program explore and contextualize the stories of these settlements’ residents, as explained in this interview with Goethe University’s Tabea Latocha and Prof. Sebastian Schipper, as well as Angelina Schaefer, the Historical Museum’s independent curator.
UniReport: A casual question to start: Who made the first move?
Angelina Schaefer: You approached us, didn’t you?
Tabea Latocha: That’s correct! Four years ago, at a meeting with Katharina Böttger, Citylab’s curator, I talked about the German Research Foundation-funded project “Home and Housing in Urban Regeneration Processes: Studying the Macro through Historiographies of the Micro in Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Frankfurt am Main,” led by Sebastian Schipper and Bernd Belina. I had conducted research on selected housing settlements in Frankfurt as part of the project, and explained to her that we conduct our research in an applied, critical way – in collaboration with tenants and social initiatives. That’s when the idea emerged to use the Citylab format not just to present our research but to develop it further in a participatory manner.
So, in this Citylab, researchers are more than just consultants – they’re involved on an equal footing.
Latocha: Correct, this is the first Citylab that not only involves Frankfurt citizens but also features an explicit partnership with the university. We asked ourselves: What could such a collaboration look like? The housing issue is, after all, scientifically complex, requiring macropolitical processes such as legislation to be translated into an exhibition format, not to mention the subjective perspectives of residents.
Sebastian Schipper: This was only possible because the research project itself is participatory, which aligns perfectly with a participatory museum pedagogy. Our research project was inspired by a method developed by Tovi Fenster from Tel Aviv University, who is also involved in the exhibition. She calls it the “Archaeology of the Address Methodology”. Using archival work to study the history of individual housing estates, we reconstruct the residents’ stories and trace them to the present – thereby also illuminating the history of Germany’s housing policy. It’s about moving from the micro to the macro, as referenced in the project title.
Did both sides share the same goals from the start?
Schaefer: Yes, we both wanted to involve the people who are directly affected – those living this reality. Your research [she turns to Latocha and Schipper] brought a local focus on the three settlements. We really benefited from your contacts and your in-depth knowledge of these communities.
Latocha: We used the centennial as a starting point to explore what ideas the tradition of the common good in Frankfurt’s urban and housing policy holds for addressing today’s housing question. And we wanted to ground that with the subjective perspectives of people who are currently experiencing the housing crisis.
Schipper: Science seeks to understand the world. But beyond that, we social scientists also want to give something back to society. So having the chance to use the Citylab – well, that’s like hitting the jackpot.
Schaefer: For us, it was also important because we had far fewer Citylab community contributors than with other topics. The gap was beautifully filled with academic insights.
Fewer participants for such a hugely relevant topic as housing?
Schipper: The focus was very much on the residents of the three settlements, people facing eviction and rent hikes. They don’t have time for museum workshops; they’re juggling a third job or other urgent matters.
Schaefer: The housing issue is precarious. Many people prefer not to talk about their own situation or share private experiences. We have to act very sensitively as a museum.
You’ve also included municipal staff and decision-makers in the exhibition and the program. How were they integrated?
Schaefer: Decision-makers are involved in the exhibition’s accompanying program through panel discussions and information evenings. There’s also a future-oriented section of the exhibition that asks: “How do we want to live in the future – and how do we get there?” We show video interviews there with an architect, someone from the Housing Department, and a social scientist.
Do you already have a favorite exhibition piece?
Schaefer: I’m really looking forward to the contribution from the daycare center in the Henri-Dunant housing estate. The children built a model of how they experience Sossenheim. They and their carers spent a lot of time in the neighborhood and carried out detailed research there, on the basis of which the children then created 10 drawings that really, really impressed me. They also conducted interviews with adults, which will be part of their exhibition piece.
Schipper: I’m definitely curious about the mold apartment that’s been recreated. It really shows what it’s like to live in such conditions.
Latocha: My choice would also be the mold apartment – an exhibit that only becomes possible because a few people who face major daily struggles – and suffer deeply from them – gathered all their courage to contribute to the Stadtlabor. Such a decision involves fears as well as legal questions surrounding tenant rights. I also really like the mobile created by a young woman: it presents her perspective as a teenager living in the housing estate and explores the question: Is it fair that I can’t afford to move out after finishing high school? She loves the estate, the greenery, but at the same time, she sees how her mother is struggling with the high rent.
The exhibition will also include a section on visions for the future.
Latocha: We’ve created a “Future Table” visitors can sit at. It features a kind of tablecloth printed with positive examples of social housing. Visitors are also invited to contribute their own ideas and inform themselves, including through cards that provide information about housing policy demands. Another area poses the questions: What can we learn from the last 100 years of social housing? What worked well? What didn’t? After all, social housing wasn’t perfect. It is here where visitors can then build their own imagined housing estate.
Schaefer: This means that more models will be created over the course of the exhibition – for example, in workshops with children.
So, the longer the exhibition runs, the more complex and complete it becomes?
Schaefer: Yes, that’s how our Citylabs work. All feature participatory stations where people can leave their thoughts. Over time, a dialogue often develops between different notes, with visitors commenting on each other’s comments.
What did you personally learn while putting this exhibition together?
Latocha: I learned that just because I think I’m using simple language, that doesn’t always mean it works in a museum setting. What do we actually mean by terms like modernization, renovation, and refurbishment? We had to come up with shotr formats to explain these concepts concisely – without turning the exhibition into a lecture.
Schaefer: I found it fascinating to work with you all during the text editing phase. The Citylab contributors write their own texts, which we edit. I really appreciated how we found a shared language and learnt a lot linguistically about making things understandable while still being precise. I hope it resonates with our visitors.
What kind of impact do you hope the exhibition will have?
Schaefer: One of the contributors kept saying he wanted the exhibition to motivate visitors to speak up for their own interests – and to protest.
Schipper: The exhibition will show that today’s experiences of searching for housing, losing one’s home, or facing housing insecurity are the result of social, political, and economic conditions. And that things could be done differently – as shown by the “Future Table”.
Are you optimistic?
Latocha: Giving up isn’t an option! There are positive examples – and experience shows that protest can make a difference. It would be wrong to think that housing will cease being a profitmaking endeavor overnight. Neither will rents drop immediately. Key is the moment when people come together and realize: “It’s not just me – it affects all of us.” And numbers bring political agency. If that realization takes root, a lot can grow from it, even if the outcome remains open.
The Stadtlabor Exhibition Alle Tage Wohnungsfrage. Vom Privatisieren, Sanieren und Protestieren opens on June 18 at the Historical Museum Frankfurt, Saalhof 1, 60311 Frankfurt.
